Sensex gains 66 pts as markets show resilience

MUMBAI: Indian bourses on Friday virtually set aside the shock of a violent terror strike on the country's commercial capital, with the markets showing greater resilience as the benchmark 30-share index gained 66 points amid a 7.6 per cent GDP growth in the second quarter.
    
The market, however, witnessed choppy trade on account of the day being the last one of derivatives series. The expiry in the Futures and Options was postponed by a day as the markets remained closed on Thursday following the terrorist attacks on Wednesday night.
    
The Bombay Stock Exchange barometer settled the day at 9,092.72, a net rise of 66.00 points or 0.73 per cent from its previous close.
    
Resuming sharply lower at 8,889.18, the Sensex later moved erratically in a 268-point range, as the activity was mostly confined to squaring off by investors.
    
The broader 50-share Nifty of the National Stock Exchange ended at 2,755.10, marginally higher from its last close of 2,752.25.
   
Brokers said encouraging global cues as well as news that Indian economy notched a reasonable growth rate of 7.6 per cent in the second quarter of the current fiscal aided the market sentiment.
    
Barring the Shanghai Composite, which closed 2.44 per cent lower, other Asian indices were stronger by about 1.0 to 4.0 per cent. Taiwan market, however, ended flat.
    
They said markets seem still optimistic about a probable rate cut by the Reserve Bank, which had earlier taken steps to infuse sufficient liquidity in the banking system to tide over any adverse impact of the global financial crisis.
    
India's largest software services exporter TCS firmed up by 5.89 per cent, Infosys Tech by 4.49 per cent, Satyam Comput by 2.60 per cent and Wipro by 0.95 per cent.
    
Other major gainers from the Sensex pack were BHEL (4.78 per cent), Mah&Mah (4.47 per cent), HDFC (3.34 per cent), Sterlite (2.58 per cent), Bharti Airtel (2.50 per cent), Tata Power (2.18 per cent) and HDFC Bank (1.46 per cent).
    
However, Reliance Infra was down 3.26 per cent, L&T 3.14 per cent, Grasim 3.03 per cent, NTPC 2.86 per cent, Tata Steel 2.55 per cent, Tata Motors 2.43 per cent, Ranbaxy 2.06 per cent and Reliance Comm by 1.71 per cent.
    
The market breadth, however, remained negative as 1,109 stocks showed declines against 919 gainers.
    
Trading volume was extremely low at Rs 2,396.44 crore. RIL clocked the highest turnover of Rs 239.72 crore followed by Educomp Solutions (Rs 146.97 crore), SBI (Rs 114.74 crore), BHEL (Rs 106.60 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 103.90 crore).
    
The broad-based BSE-100 index improved by 22.64 points or 0.49 per cent to 4,600.45 from its previous close.
    
The BSE-200 Index was quoted higher at 1,062.35 while the BSE-200 eased to 353.03 as compared to their last close of 1,057.41 and 355.94 respectively.
    
The recently battered IT and Auto sectors were also in the limelight. Both BSE IT index and Auto index spurted by 90.49 points or 3.67 per cent and 32.81 points or 1.43 per cent, respectively.